La Belle Dame sans Merci

        I found this poem my favorite out of Keat's poetry. I know we haven't discussed this, but I was hoping maybe I could.

This poem was very romantic and saddening, in my opinion, just at first glance. You find a brave knight at arms who is pale and sad. When he asked why he still at arms, when the war is over, why is he so sad; you find the romantic tale.

The knight goes on to tale of how he was out riding when a fair maiden of wild beauty met him in the meadows. It tells of their love for each other(or so you think). Then the maiden of beauty lolls the knight to sleep. When he has a dream, no he has a nightmare. He sees(from my impression) all of the fair maiden's past lovers. Princes, kings, all pale and death-like staring at him warning him of something, all still in love with the fair maiden.

our brave knight awakes on the cold hill's side to find himself alone, and there he stays pale and sad.

Though I know this is just mostly surface reading, I'm hoping to re-read it and find the hidden meaning. And I know 'tis is very late for me to be posting. Hopefully I will be given some grace, if not I guess I'll use one of my passes.

Anyways I commented on Tori's post

Aye.

Poetry truly is the language of God; it is beautiful, infinitely packed with meaning, constantly revealing new things the more we read it. Words are so powerful, yet we underestimate words’ impact and the weight they carry. Perhaps this is cliche, but I believe it’s biblical, for John said “In the beginning was the Word.” I’ve been reading through John recently, and it just fascinates me that for whatever mysterious, marvelous reason, Jesus is specifically called the Word. From the short life I’ve lived, I have some how wound up at the conclusion that words are of utmost importance--like they were meant to be a sort of extension of the soul. So a poem, a composition of many words, is in a way divine because it contains so much complexity and a sense of immortality.

However complex these poems may seem upon the first read, I find the more we delve into them the deeper they resonate with something within me.

For I have learned

To look on nature, not as in the hour

Of thoughtless youth; but hearing oftentimes

The still, sad music of humanity,

Nor harsh nor grating, though of ample power

To chasten and subdue.

There’s more to understanding this life than just mere logic and formulated responses. Sometimes understanding comes in the form of something much darker and far more intricate. I think the Romantics got that because they knew the nature of the soul. The soul is critical. Why is it that we neglect it?

So basically, everything we’ve been talking about in class for the last few days, my soul gives a hearty ‘Aye!’ to.

I commented on Kelsey Parrish's blog about the Nightingale.

URN't you glad to see me?

*pun*

Due to mandatory theatre workshops this week, I haven't been able to come to class. However, I did get a chance to actually read the material beforehand this week! Yay for doing things that are expected of you? Anyway, I digress.

I want to talk about the 'Ode to a Grecian Urn' in this blog. After the initial read-through I said to myself, "What did I just read?", so I read it again. After the second read through I was slightly confused, as my brain wanted to interpret the poem in two different ways.

The first of which is that all of the artwork represents eternal things. The love of the youth under the tree, the growth of the tree, etc. are all memories that symbolize the different aspects of the deceased person inside the urn so that they can be remembered, and will last forever.

The second of which is that all of the artwork on the urn is frozen in time. The lovers are close, but can never kiss. The tree will never grow fruit, the instruments will never play and the sacrifice will never take place. All of this could represent how no matter what is going on when a person dies, everything stops. You can't kiss your lover when you're dead, just like you cannot sacrifice a cow when you're dead. When your life ends, so does your possibility of action.

I'm not sure which meaning was intended, or if any of this was discussed in class, but I thought I'd share my thoughts.

So, what did we learn today? Always make a fanfare out of doing the work that's expected of you? Always read poetry at least twice? Urns are cool? All good answers. Tune in next week for your regularly scheduled broadcast of 'The Procrastinator' ...eventually….

P.S. I commented on Nick's

Unheard Melodies

“Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard

Are sweeter; therefore, ye soft pipes, play on;

Not to the sensual ear, but, more endeared,

Pipe to the spirit ditties of no tone...”

As a musician, I started thinking about this a lot after we began discussing this section of Keats’ text Tuesday. I began to think about all the things that were said in class. I want to echo some of the things that were said and interject some other things. When we hear music that has been published and over played, we can become desensitized to it just like we pointed out how Voltaire showed us that we can become desensitized to the bad things that go on around us.

I don’t know many people who don’t enjoy music of some type, but we change what we like when something new comes out. As music gets old, it becomes less “sweet” to our ears. Essentially, once music is out for people to hear, that piece can’t be changed, and it begins that downward spiral. Therefore, the only music that stays sweet is the music that is never commercialized. Just like Lucy said in class, some of my favorite music is music that I have written, but never shared with anyone. This is mainly true because it still has all the meaning to it that I have held onto.

Whether or not that was Keats’ original intent, that seems like a great application for today.

P.S. I commented on Cameron White’s “The Next Moment.”

I have no idea what I'm talking about but I tried...

Fair youth, beneath the trees, thou canst not leave
Thy song, not ever can those trees be ate;
Bold lover, never, never cast thou kiss,
Though winning near the goal – yet, do not grieve;
She cannot fade, though thou hast not thy bliss,
For ever wilt thou love, and she be fair!

Dr. Mitchel told us to think about these lines of poetry and whether they relate to Heaven or Hell. Well, the way I see it is that this particular picture on the urn is portraying that pivotal moment right before the first kiss. I think the great “heavenly” part to this picture is just the passion and youth behind it. The fact that they are frozen in such love depicts the timelessness that is shown throughout the poem. However, it also has a little bit of “Hell” in it where they can never kiss even though they are so close! So, in a way they are suffering. I gotta say that I honestly don’t know which one it is but I’m leaning toward Heaven because of how even though it seems as if they are suffering, it’s really only for the glory of the urn (God).

All Dogs Go to Paradise

"Many years ago when an adored dog died, a great friend, a bishop, said to me, "You must always remember that, as far as the Bible is concerned, God only threw the humans out of Paradise." -Unknown

It is certainly interesting that Wordsworth's hermetic hero describes himself in his youthful days as a labrador, because it certainly brings up a lot of interesting connotations. Joyous, simple, laughing, happy, and overall content with his lot in life. Wordsworth is naturally going for these words because it'll make all the more sense when he is knocked out of his labrador phase and into consciousness. Life, pain, but moreover the prescence of God's reality in his life awakens him to a new form of awareness where he ultimately realizes it is better to live not in constant joy and bliss, like a dog, nor is it better to constantly be weighed down by the burdens of life. No, the best thing is a combination of the two, where he is rooted in reality and pragmaticism but has joy akin to that of a puppy dog, all tied intogether with the knowledge of God's truth.

That's not good enough for me, though, because if Wordsworth wants to compare himself to a puppy dog, I'd like to compare the whole thing to Paradise Lost. The story goes that Adam and Eve were perfectly happy and blissful in Paradise, until they sinned and were banished from the Garden into the wilderness. The problem is, instead of finding truth, they actually ruin truth forever by staining it with sin. Instead of living in a true awareness of who they are and who God made them to be, they destroy the beauty God had planned and stain their lives and the rest of the world with evil. What was once a complete, logical world becomes completely wrong and illogical, and the rest is history.

Of course, and we discussed this in class last year, just because Adam and Eve were living in Paradise in complete innocence does mean they were nothing but mindless labradors. They lived in full consciousness of who they were, the order of the world, and knowledge of the prescence of God. Sinning simply meant that confusion entered their lives and they lost sight of who they were meant to be. Wordsworth, however, states it was after the fall of innocence that he gained true recognition of himself, so who is right? Who can truly say? I just find it interesting that two seemingly unrelated writers could parallel, yet opposite ground, and it all has to do with labradors!

Anyway, that's my blog, feel free to comment with praise or poison, either works. Thanks for reading! BTW, my blog post is on Bethan Morgan's Kubla Kahn's Kibbles and bits.

I can see what you mean by the woman's impassioned longing for what is essentially Satanic. Things suddenly get really dark, really quick, and I can almost see a gothic, vampiric scene taking place. No, not Twilight, but more like Dracula in that the woman has an intense lust for her temptation that she should be avoiding, but embraces it anyway and loses herself in it. The big kicker, though, is that it's not an ordinary force of nature but a man-made disaster like a dirty bomb or a dam demolishing, which only makes it all the more evil. Good observation!

Schleiermacher's got beef with the French...

"For other reasons I turn from the French. On them, one who honours religion can hardly endure to look, for in every act and almost in every word, they tread its holiest ordinances under foot."

First of all I just want to say that I definitely didn't understand a whole lot of what Schleiermacher said, so this may just be completely ignorant to what he was actually trying to say, I hope not, but just in case, consider yourself warned.

When I first read this part I almost laughed because I thought he was going to make a joke or some metaphor or something. The last thing I expected was a very enthusiastic and in depth explanation of why he actually doesn't like french people. I couldn't help but thinking that this whole paragraph wasn't really a christian mindset for a guy making a ridiculously long speech about religion.

Matthew 9:36 "But when He saw the multitudes, He was moved with compassion for them, because they were weary and scattered, like sheep having no shepherd."

Something that organized religion has always had a hard time of doing is meeting people where they are. Far too often, we as christians will pass judgement on other people before so much as meeting them. And in doing so, we immediately abandon any semblance of a Christ like mindset. This is an extremely challenging practice to take hold of. However, we also have to realize the importance of doing so in order to be able to meet people where they are. Whenever I don't know how to handle certain situations with my non-christian friends, its always an extremely challenging thing for me to realize that Jesus was friends with the worst of the worst in his society. He lived his entire life absolutely contrary to societies judgements and preconceived notions about people.

While the Schleiermacher reading was much longer than I had anticipated, it had some great stuff in it. Personally the part I thought the most interesting was the discussion of two opposing natures; that of the soul and of sinful desire ("insatiable sensuality"). "Swinging eternally between desire and enjoyment, such persons never get beyond consciousness of the individual,.." This line really sums up, for me, the sickness indwelling in all of us. We spend so much time trying to fix the problems of the world when in all reality the problem is our self-absorption, these global problems are just effects of a greater cause. What we seem to be afraid of is the realization that, "I am the problem." Such a simple realization but with so many implications.

p.s. commented on Susan Berner's post

Forever Young

The Ode to the Garden Urn is truly a fantastic and creative piece. The writers way of personifying the picture on the urn are the work of a truly talented poet. The poem makes known that because these subjects are portrayed on the urn they have become timeless. In what ways are timeless images displayed in a positive way and in what way are images like these that are made timeless negative? Is this even possible. Take for example a picture of a new family. This would seem to be an awfully good memory of the family at a nice Sunday picnic. One would think this would be a memory to last forever... Just by glancing at the picture one may begin to envy this seemingly perfect family. But, what this timeless picture does not tell you is that the 10 minutes after this photo was taken the man receives a phone call from a friend who confesses his 4 year affair with the man's wife. Not such a happy memory now. This awful memory becomes timeless, but it a horribly negative way. Does this effect anything? Does this make the memory less valid? Take the lovers in on the urn. Caught in the middle of a kiss. Forever longing each other, never to know the disappointment of a bad kiss or the hurt of a break up. They are forever in between. I think that is the only way a timeless picture can be completely positive.... when the action caught in time is perhaps in the making but has not been completed... I'd like to know what you think about this.

commented on Rachel's- as always. :)

Loss of what to say...

So I'm basically sitting here searching for what to say. Of all the things that I read, I liked Kubla Khan the most, but even then I didn't really "pull much from it". I'm personally not a fan of Coleridge. His writing doesn't really appeal to me. I would have loved to have read some of Percy Bysshe Shelley or Lord Byron. Their writing is more structured and organized. To me Coleridge is the ramblings of someone whose high. Oh wait... Didn't he write Kubla Khan after coming out of a moment when he's high? Funny how that works. I hope this works for a post. I know its not the best ever, but its the best that I can do right now.

P.S.-- I commented on "Kubla Khan Kibbles" by Bethan Morgans

VIII

Discloser: (This is my personally interpretation and is not to be taken seriously, because I know that I'm totally missing the point that Coleridge is trying to make. READ AT YOUR OWN RISK.)

I think that the woman that he is talking about is a close friend of his that has gone out on a limb and made her true feelings for him known. However, Coleridge politely and respectively tells her that he just wants to be friends without crushing her heart into a million pieces. Unfortunately her feelings still get hurt and she runs off. So now he is writing this poem to express his hopes and wishes for her to be happy again and not be depressed and gloomy all the time. In the poem he asks sleep to visit her and let her rest because I'm sure she's spent the whole night up crying her eyes out so far. Then he wishes for her to be happy again and for things to be the way they once were and for her heart to mended. This all expresses how much her truly cares for her, even if it is as a sister or something like that. I would hate to be in the situation that he was in.

-Samuel A. Oliver

P.S. I commented on Susan Berners. Bright Star, Brighter Flame

Bright Stars, Brighter Flame

While I love the idea of Keats’ poem “Bright Star”, I am not sure if I completely agree. I don’t know anyone who at first thought would say that they would not want a love as constant and burning as a star like what Keats mentions in his poem. However, I believe that the best part about being in a relationship is the way that it is always changing as the years go on. I would not want my love for a boyfriend or even husband to just stay at one place all of our lives. I want to have little fights so we can make up and be even more in love than before, or go through trials and come out stronger than before. If everything was perfect all the time and there was no passion life would be boring. I want to be in love with the same person for the rest of my life, but I want us to grow and mature and constantly love each other more every day. I think I would rather be like a flame that just keeps getting brighter and more powerful the more time and care is put into it.

-Susan Berner

P.S. I commented on Anna (Nightingale)

Kubla Khan

The one part that popped out to me was the woman and her demon lover. That was kind of freaky. Most of Kubla Khan kind of confused me. But the place Kubla Khan is sounds pretty nice. However, all I got from the poem was how it shows off creativity by creating this world.

"Where Alph, the sacred river, ran

Through caverns measueless to man...

The shadow of the dome of pleasure

Floated midway on the waves...

It was an Abyssian maid

And on her dulcimer she played,

Singing of Mount Abora"

By creating such a crazy world from the dream, it allows readers to be creative in their thinking as well.

PS.Tori Burger "Two young lovers painted on an Urn..."

Kubla Khan Kibbles and bits -I always thought the name sounded like a dog food brand:)

None of the Odes really seemed to capture my fancy, so I decided on good ol' Kubla Khan. I remember reading this in highschool, and as weird as it was...and as hard to understand...I still find it very interesting. Especially this part:

But oh! that deep romantic chasm which slanted
Down the green hill athwart a cedarn cover!
A savage place! as holy and enchanted
As e'er beneath a waning moon was haunted
By woman wailing for her demon-lover!

I find this to be a strange comparison, and one I dont quite understand the meaning of. The fantastical, almost sacred landscaped place described in the first stanza is compared in lines 14-16 as a haunted cursed place where a woman longs for her demon-lover( this phrase captures my attention every time). All of this takes place beneath a waning moon...what an atmosphere! Anyways, the first thing I think of is the possible connection between the woman and her demon- lover, and Eve and the serpent. So from there, that gets me thinking about maybe the first description of the place as a kind of paradise versus temptataion? I dont know if this is making sense...Im just trying to get all my thoughts down. I guess the connection Im trying to make (somewhere in here hah) is that the of the dream place and possibly the Garden of Eden. This all starts, like I said before, with the line "woman wailing for her demon-lover". For after this taste of temptaion in which the woman is earning, begging for it, and then up until about line thirty, the dreams atmosphere becomes very dark and violent; war-like. It has the feeling of a convergence of a man-made disaster and natural disaster. Once again this gets me to thinking about the effect of Eve and her giving into temptation.

I apologize if that came out as a big jumble to everyone else, which it probably did.

This is my comment on Kelsey Moore's post ( It still wont let me comment on other peoples)

This got me to thinking alot about one of our lessons on Socrates in my Western Civ class the other day...especially your last two sentences. The root of the lesson was this idea that history is worth studying because although details change, human nature is always the same and we can be more wise in our own time by studying what happened in the past because people are not all that different. I find this true with literature too, this idea of jealousy, escapism, satire, love and unattainable love. Through literature, we learn that these traits never really die or leave human nature.

A Nightingale and a Druggie?!?

I read the first stanza of "Ode to a Nightingale" and I was not really sure what some of the words meant so I decided to look them up.

"My heart aches, and a drowsy numbness pains
My sense, as though of hemlock I had drunk,
Or emptied some dull opiate to the drains
One minute past, and Lethe-wards had sunk:
'Tis not through envy of thy happy lot,
But being too happy in thy happiness,
That thou, light-winged Dryad of the trees,
In some melodious plot
Of beechen green, and shadows numberless,
Singest of summer in full-throated ease."

After I looked up hemlock and opiate I came to the realization that this guy is on drugs. He is using the drugs to slip into a world of ignorance. He wants to be like the nightingale and not have a care in the world. He states that he is not jealous of the nightingale's bliss, but that he would like to join the nightingale in its happiness. Like sharing the wealth.

I do not really agree with the use of drugs to help us forget the world. I think that he needs to deal with the problems of life and try to learn from them. We all need have to deal with life and its many dilemmas. Dealing with the hard stuff is the only way that we will can ever learn to grow up.

P.S. I commented on Anna Rhodes' "A Bird, a Dog, and Humankind"

The Sound of Melodies

“Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard
Are sweeter;”

I know we talked about this in class, but once again an idea has grabbed hold of my brain and I have to write it down.

First, I really think I need to define exactly what I think an unheard melody is. I agree with what everyone else said in class, an unheard melody can be something that only one or two people have heard, something that that has only been played once, or something that has never been played. But, I think an unheard melody is so much more than that, unheard melodies are all around us, all the time. They are the unmistakable joy in the air when a child is born or at a wedding, they are the great feeling of sadness over a group of people when they lose someone close, and they are also the tension in the air when one of the debates in class gets out of hand and everyone is chomping at the bit to have their say.

Heard melodies can have a great impact on people, especially during times of trial. For example, the song Blessings by Laura Story has meant a great deal to me over the last few weeks. The tone of the song has continually reminded me that there is a light at the end of this very long, very dark tunnel. With heard melodies, you are almost certain to find a song to fit your mood. Though sometimes, it’s not exactly what you need.

Unheard melodies though, will always fit whatever situation you are in. They are more emotion then an actual song. They are always in the air, making it tremble with excitement, sadness, tension, hurt, anger, and so many more. They are the unspoken hurts, the heartbreak, and the sobs in the night. They are the laugh of a child, the pain when they scrape their knee, and the defiance when they disobey. They are the joy of a first love, the anger of a first fight, and once again, the pain of heartbreak. They are every emotion we feel.

The reason unheard melodies are sweeter, is because they are raw, they haven’t been edited for content. Unheard melodies are entwined in every part of who we and are in everything we do.

I honestly don’t know if I repeated myself more than I should have, but I hope what I said made sense. Thanks for reading, until next time

Meghan

PS. I posted on Tori Burgers “Two Young Lovers Painted on an Urn, K-I-S-S-I-N-... What rhymes with "urn"?”

And these are the thoughts that haunt me (:

In my personal opinion, i absolutely love poetry. I love being able to flow through the movement and read the feeling inside and behind the words. In class on tuesday we finished talking about Tintern Abbey and then moved into John Keats writings. I found it interesting yet again how most of the time, we relate suffering and pain most of the time through poetry. It is a theme that normally makes up poetry altogether. Its always about some kind of pain or suffering a person or subject.
    In Keats writings, referring to an Ode to a Nightingale. All there seems to be is groaning and complaining about life, all the things that cause pain and suffering. This seems to be a recurring subject: pain and suffering. Why do we have it? Why is it needed? Growing up, my dad always told me that things that are too good to be true are generally never good. Life without suffering would not be life. How could we ever excel? How could we ever learn and be better humans? We couldn't be. There would be no point to life would there?
  Without the experience of suffering, learning through our experiences, then changing ourselves to be better, life would seem too good to be true.
   I know that i seem to always go back to suffering and pain, but where i am in my own life and growth, I am experiencing pain and suffering and have seen how it has shaped me in my own life and grow stronger and have better understanding of reality. Now bringing this back to poetry, this is exactly what i believe poetry is and even romanticism in itself.

p.s i commented on Katelyn's post (:

Not by Choice

I found “Ode on a Grecian Urn” quite interesting, and not just because I have often found myself in conversation with inanimate objects...

When I read the first two lines, my first thought was the fact that both a bride and a foster-child live in situations they were not born into. Stepping away from the “unravished” thing for a minute, I think it is also important to note that the bride is being introduced to her life by marriage, and she probably didn’t choose the person she has married or is going to marry. The foster-child is also in a situation that he was not born into and did not choose for himself. Back to the fact that the child and the bride represent the urn, the urn did not choose to be created or designed with the pictures, but it is still beautiful and tells a great story.

This is where I may be stretching things a bit, but when I thought about all of this, I immediately thought about how many times I’ve found myself in situations, especially bad situations, that I didn’t choose for myself. Looking back though, the times in my life that have had the greatest effect on me as a person are the ones I would have never chosen to experience.

In line 49, Keats claims “Beauty is truth, truth beauty,” but is that all one really needs to know? I don’t know what type of material the urn was made of, but I’m guessing it was some type of stone that had to be carved or shaped into what it was to become. The beauty was not immediate. It took some time, and probably even a little suffering on behalf of the artist. By that same logic, truth is beautiful, but sometimes finding truth isn’t a beautiful journey.

P.S. Posted on Anna Rhode's "A Bird, A Dog, and Humankind"

A Bird, A Dog, and Humankind

In Keats’ Ode to a Nightingale, He was tired of hearing people groan about the miseries of life. He sees the nightingale very similarly to our friend, the Labrador; we talked about in class today. He says,

“And with thee fade away into the forest dim:

Fade far away, dissolve, and quite forget

What thou among the leaves hast never known …” (Lines 20-24)

Here where men sit and hear each other groan,”

Keats wished to escape human consciousness and go back to child-like innocence. He longed to be like the nightingale, careless and free— without need to groan about life.

But wait, isn’t groaning a part of life? Doesn’t suffering teach us, though it is painful? If you never had anything to groan about wouldn’t life seem a little tainted, a little too good to be true? According to Wordsworth the nightingale and the Labrador have not experienced life fully. In Tintern Abbey, Wordsworth says,

“To look on nature, not as in the hour

Of thoughtless youth; but hearing oftentimes

The still, sad music of humanity…

A motion and spirit, that impels

All thinking things, all objects of all thought,

And rolls through all things…”

Wordsworth felt that life is not complete without the growth of the human consciousness by experience. This human consciousness leads you to a fuller understanding. I think it is very easy to read both of these poems and get depressed. However a way to think about it is that Wordsworth is speaking about seasons in life. Yes, sometimes these seasons involve pain, and suffering, but ultimately one gains a kind of seeing that the nightingale nor the Labrador will ever understand.

P. S. I commented on Callie's post.

Two Young Lovers Painted on an Urn, K-I-S-S-I-N-... What rhymes with "urn"?

     My initial impression of the painting of the young couple on the Grecian urn was that the artist was playing a sick joke on the lovers, tantalizing them and dangling a potentially romantic kiss in front of them but holding them inches from actually kissing. However, I realized he was doing them a great favor. He gave each of them their own ideal kiss left to the imagination.

     Speaking to the young couple, the observer tells them not to grieve though they are stuck in a moment that looks very unfortunate for them (imagine holding your face inches away from your significant others' for forever. Awkward...) However, it is actually the exact moment that contains the veery essence of bliss.both of their expectations are sky high in this moment-pulses racing, hearts pounding- and because they are frozen they will never know disappointment, though they will also never know the satisfaction embedded in the kiss itself. Their passions remain insatiable for the remainder of time.  

Also, after reading this stanza, I couldn't help but wonder if the artist had a couple to model for this painting. If so, I'm interested to know if they experienced torture or bliss.